


When The Bough Breaks

by Cap10



Category: The Martian (2015), The Martian - All Media Types, The Martian - Andy Wier
Genre: Crew as Family, F/M, Gen, PTSD, Starvation, Survival, Teamwork, Watney is a terrible patient, medical drama, post rescue, radiation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-05
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-04-30 02:45:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5147393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cap10/pseuds/Cap10
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The crew of the Hermes has successfully gotten Mark Watney off of Mars, but even though they have won one battle they may have lost the war. Between the effects of starvation, radiation, martian sand, and low gravity Dr. Chris Beck can't help but wonder if they had rescued the botanist just to have him die on the way back or worse in reentry. Still, if the crew of Ares III proven anything to the world it is that they were not going to give up one their crewmate. They would not loose Watney again without a fight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Vaccum

**Author's Note:**

> Some time ago my brother (a mechanical engineer that has spent a fair amount of time at NASA) picked up the Martian, read it and decided to that I had to read it as well. I did and enjoyed it a lot. As a geologist/hydrologist/environmental toxicologist/soil scientist I was able to poke holes in some of the botany (it probably didn't help that the lab that was breeding space crops was just down the hall from where I did my thesis work), but the people were eerily similar to a bunch of scientists I have done fieldwork with. 
> 
> I also really connected with the rescue aspect of the story because several years ago I had to be medevaced from a remote arctic base. That experience made me realize that even though the moment of rescue is often celebrated the journey back to civilization is often the the most harrowing part of the entire experience. For me evacuation took 2.5 days and 2 weeks in quarantine. For Watney the journey is much longer.
> 
> Also before we jump into the story a quick note, English is not my strongest language. As a result I suspect there will be spelling and grammar errors that evaded my edits. If you catch something that needs to be fixed shoot me a message or leave a comment in the reviews and I will do my best to fix the error as quickly as possible.

As fast as the Hermes’s emergency systems are, at the moment they were not fast enough for Beck’s liking. He had about had a heart attack when Watney’s com had gone silent during the rescue. When Vogel had cranked their wayward crewmate back to the relative safety of the airlock the discovered the reason was because the idiot had muted his com signal.

It was relatively easy for Lewis to override and restore communication with him once we knew what the problem was. Watney ragged sobs were the first thing the crew could hear when the channel crackled to life. Vogel and Lewis to flitch at the sound, this caused the Mark to glare at them and try to even out the rhythm of his breath.

“You really did a number on your ribs didn’t you?” Beck asked trying to coax an answer from his patient.

“Told you that broke a couple of them, being hauled back on board made them sing like a son of a bitch.” Watney wheezed. “

You could have mentioned something.” Vogel muttered a bit stunned by the realization.

“And what would that have changed?” Mark spat. “The tether was the only way I could possible get back on ship.” He breathed in a bit too sharply and let out a strangled sob. “God I wish I had some Vicodin.”

“That is something I can fix.” Beck placed a hand on Watney’s shoulder. “What do you say we blow this Popsicle stand and get you to sickbay?”

“That sounds wonderful.” Watney actually managed to sag in zero gravity, as Beck started dragging him into the ship. There weren’t any barriers with most of the ship in a hard vacuum they didn’t need to even bother cycling the airlock. As the left the doctor commented good naturally over his shoulder. “Well, while Watney are busy getting to sickbay why don’t you all work on getting the ship sealed back up so that we can pressure back?”

“Point taken.” Lewis said good natured lilt that had been missing from her voice for months. With a few well-placed kicks she had propelled herself towards the vehicle port. Watney on the hand seem to flounder like a beached child caught in a wave. He flopped around clearly trying to reorient himself to zero gravity and from the hissing sound that he was making as he moved he was clearly hurting himself further in the process.

“Watney, stop fighting.” Beck was pretty shocked that Mark actually listened to his order and stilled, but he was going to take advantage of the situation. “Stay limp, and let guide you. That is right, just the way they made us practice emergency procedures in the pool in Houston.” The mention of past training seemed to help the botanist relax into the situation and training kicked in. In less than 15 minutes Beck had managed manhandle Watney into the medical bay and got him strapped into the one of the three medical cots. Now all they had to do was wait for Hermes emergency systems to kick in. Systems that were taking far longer to do their job than Beck would have preferred.

* * *

 It took an hour for sound to start to blossom around them. Another 30 minutes before Commander Lewis gave the announcement that ships internal pressure was within a breathable range. As soon the announcement was made Mark made a movement to undo his helmet but Beck stopped him. If there was a problem with the air, Beck trusted his own reaction times over his patients.

The doctor released clip and took in a deep breath a cold, chemical smelling, but perfectly breathable air. After a few deep Beck moved to assist Watney to remove his own helmet. Chris only managed to lift the helmet a fraction of an inch before his eyes started to water and he had to swallow hard to keep bile from coming up.

“What’s wrong?” Mark asked alarmed.

“You haven’t taken a shower in a long time have you?” Beck gasped managed to get the helmet the rest of the way off.

“I didn’t have the water to spare.”

“Well, your personal perfume agrees with that statement.” Beck swallowed hard again and tried to breathe through his mouth. “Shall we take a look at the damage today’s stunt did?”

“Just a couple of broken ribs.”

“There is no such thing as a just braking a rib in space.”

“Well I would rather have smashed up ribs and make it to the ship than perfect ones and miss my ride. It is a long walk home to earth.” Watney arched an eyebrow.

“I see you haven’t lost your sense of humor.” Beck razzed.

“Just apparently your sense of smell.” Lewis joked good naturally as she stripped out of pieces of her own space suit in order to better help Watney maneuver out of his, but it was clear that her words had a bit of bite to them as her eyes watered at the strong smell.

“Do you think that you can raise your hands above your head?” Beck got nothing but a blank glassy stare in return, he swore internally. It looked like his patient was going into shock. He tapped on the man’s cheek trying to get him to focus.

“Watney, stay with me buddy.”

“What?” His fellow astronaut slurred.

“Mark, I need to know if you can raise your hands above your head.”

“I don’t think so…” The botanist gave a one shoulder half shrug. “My chest F-ing hurts.”

“I know it does. That is why we need to get you out of your suit. Do you think that you could help me with that?”

“I don’t know…”

“Tell you what. I am going to give you some pain medication. When it kicks in and you can raise your arms you are going to take a shower and hopefully get cleaned up enough that none of the crew passes out from your fumes when you walk into the room.” Becks little speech was interrupted when Watney gave a harsh laugh that abruptly ended with him curling protectively around his ribs. When the room had quieted again Beck continued. “Once you are cleaned up we will take an x-ray or your ribs and take a look are your injuries. We will have a better idea what to do going forward when everything is cataloged.”

* * *

The entire crew had found a couple moments to swing by sick bay and at least say hello between medical tests, but after seeing just how drained Mark Watney was Beck had ushered them out of the room. As much as the crew of Ares III needed physical contact with Mark to prove to themselves that he wasn’t dead, that they really had rescued him, it was much more important to let the man sleep. That is exactly what Chris forced Mark to do after he consumed 25 ml of clear broth.

Asleep Beck finally had an opportunity to mentally run through the facts. Looking at the preliminary blood work it looked like they could credit the humble potatoes with his survival. Those potatoes had managed to glean just enough nutrients out of the soil to keep grow, and just enough calories to keep Watney moving. His meager crops of potatoes were not enough to prevent the man from slowly starving to death, from his body cannibalizing its tissues, and the Hermes didn’t have the correct equipment to determine if permanent damage had been done to his vital organs.

Staring at the walking skeleton bundled in heating blankets and sleeping bags to protect him from the chill of the still warming ship, Beck ran through the laundry list of issues his patient faced. His lungs and eyes had been scarred by exposure to dry Martian soil. His skin was a patchwork of sores and bruises that were struggling to heal. There were two broken ribs, and a third that looked like it had crack that was trying to heal running through it. There were compression fractures of the L3 and L4 vertebra. He was anemic, and his calcium levels were a mess. Beck suspected Osteomalacia may have set in, but the doctor was going to have to do a bone biopsy to confirm. As the only doctor for light minutes in all directions, it was terrifying to admit to himself that they may have rescued Watney too late. The crew of Ares III may be forced to watch as one of their crewmates and friends body shut down completely. Or they might lose him at the very end of their journey because even with seven months of nursing Beck doubted that Watney’s exhausted body could survive the forces of reentry, let alone life on earth.


	2. Mystery Symptoms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Beck works to stabilize Watney things continue to slowly spiral out of control. Without a diagnose Beck only option is continue to treat symptoms...symptoms that just don't add up. Oh, and Martinez throws another wrench into the docs schedule when pilot forces him to sleep.

* * *

“Chris, bro go to bed.”

“Can’t.” Beck didn’t even bother looking up at Martinez as he came through the door. The doc was too busy relaying symptoms back to Earth in hopes that the medical team could make heads or tails of the confusing mix of symptoms that Watney showing. Unfortunately it seemed like the pilot didn’t agree.

“You are not going to do Watney any good you fall asleep on him. You have been up for 48 hours straight and he is as stable as you are going to get him in the near term. Go get some rest.”

“But…”

“You know that I am a paramedic and that everyone else on the crew is at least an EMT. In an emergency we can keep him breathing long for us to scrounge you out of your bunk.” Rick crossed his arms making it clear that he was planning on standing his ground.

Beck was going to point out just how complex this medical emergency was but it was clear that that tack wasn’t going to work on Martinez so he switched course. “I was going to say what about your work, flying the ship is kind of an important job.”

“We are pointed in the right direction. The next course correction is scheduled in 15 days, and if you manage to sleep in that long Johansson or Lewis could totally take care of it.” Martinez’s mouth twisted into a wry smile. “Any other excuses you can come up with?”

“Fresh out.” Beck admitted after a moment of thought. “You comfortable with the protocol?”

“Change Mark’s IVs when they run dry but watch for fluid overload, feed him clear liquids when wakes up, yady yada.” The pilot said with a slight wave of his hand. “Go sleep. The sooner you go grab a sometime to eat and sack out the sooner you can get back to hovering. But before you come back be sure to take a shower, you are starting to smell a little bit like our boy Watney here.”

“Okay, okay.” Beck finally admitted his defeat but he looked into Martinez’s eyes with level seriousness. “I will sleep, but you will call me the moment that there is a change. We just got him off that hell hole of a planet and I am not going to lose him on my watch if we can help it.”

In a mild haze, Beck made his way into the spine of the ship. Once he had reached the galley he grabbed the first poach of food in the stack and slotted it in the convection oven. After a few minutes the machine pinged and the doctor absently started to munch on what appeared to be meat loaf.

“How is our boy doing?”  Johansson’s voice caused him to jump and nearly drop his meal.

“Gah.” He sputtered in surprise nearly let go of his meal.

“So how he is doing?” Johansson just looked amused.

“I wish I knew.” Beck admitted as he took another mouth full of process protein.

“That sounds ominous.”

“Because it is.” The doctor shrugged as he slotted his trash in the receptacle and velcroed his spoon back to the wall. “Well I am off to bed.”

“Need some company?” Johansson asked as she slid in to the galley to grab herself some coffee.

He chewed on his lip for a moment before answering. “Not tonight. I think probably should get a bit of shut eye by myself.”

Beck tucked himself comfortable into the bunk space and opened his laptop. He was hoping to get a few quite hours of searching medical literature, but he allowed his tired, gritty eyes to rest for a few moments as his computer booted up. Sound asleep he didn’t even hear computer bleep asking for his password. Eventually the laptop went into power saving mode leaving the sleeping astronaut to tackle the problems in his dreams.

* * *

 

“Listen buddy, you are not allowed to give up on us now not when we flew all this way to pick you up.” Rick Martinez pleaded under his breath.

“What?” Watney murmured still half asleep.

“Just informing you that were not allowed to leave after we had finally gotten ass off of Mars.”

“Not going anywhere.” He yawned.

“Good.”

The injured astronaut licked his lips. “Can I get something to drink? Or even better something to eat?”

“How about some broth?” Martinez indicated with false chearfulness. “You can pick from beef or turkey.”

“Turkey sandwich?” Watney asked hopefully.

“Turkey broth it is. Will you be okay for a few ticks?” When Mark nodded, Rick left the room for a couple of minutes to go grab the meal.

“So how long have I been out?” Mark yawned when Martinez returned  

Martinez glanced at the medical log. “If I am reading Mr. Doctor-who-collects-way-too-much-data’s logs right, you have been out for just over 2.5 hours.”

“Speaking of Doc, where is he?”

“I finally got him to crash about 30 minutes ago.” Martinez handed Watney his meal. “The man had been up for over 48 hours straight and was about dead on his feet. Houston was starting to get a bit worried. ”

“You know this isn’t food.” Watney glared at the clear pouch of amber liquid.

“Stop complaining, we could be feeding you potatoes.”

Watney apparently couldn’t argue with that so he tucked into his turkey broth. He didn’t even finish the container before his exhausted body dragged him back to sleep leaving Martinez to work on his reports.

* * *

 

It was official, Martinez was not allowed to make notes in the medical log again…ever…because who in there right mine draws smiley faces on a log that half of the world’s doctors would probably eventually read. He sighed. Maybe NASA could manage to edit those out for the official release. Then again with as important as this log was to increasing our world’s knowledge of how humans adapt to living in space, he was probably just plan doomed.

At least, the rest of Martinez notes were solid. Based on the data collected it appeared the patient was waking approximately once per sleep cycle for food. Strangely Watney’s sleep cycle had increased over a half hour while on Mars. Beck was unsure whether that was a product of his body trying to combat extreme malnutrition that his body had experienced or if it was an artifact of adjusting to the different day length on Mars. He suspected that NASA would be clamoring to write a couple of papers on that.

Watney’s heart rate, blood pressure, and low grade fever ebbed and flowed with his sleep cycle, which was to be expected. Still that information really didn’t tell Beck what was causing the laundry list of symptoms. Even with the amount of physical activity that Mark had been preforming on the surface of the Mars he shouldn’t be this malnourished. Everyone expected Mark to be severely underweight, but the vast store of vitamins he had access to should have protected him from nutrient deficiency.

After repeat examinations, it was clear the Watney was still suffering from dangerously low levels of iron, calcium, and vitamin D. His body’s Vitamin C levels had low enough when he had on come on board that the astronaut had actually had a nearly case of scurvy. The IV’s and nutrient supplemented broths were slowly helping to back Watney away from the end, but not as quickly as it should have.

The delayed response made Beck suspect that Watney’s severe weight issues might be due to a combination of cachexia and malnutrition. A yet undiscovered disease might have robbing Marks body of calories and nutrients. All he could do was keep Watney alive and send in data to the best minds that NASA could find in the hope that the resources of planet earth could find the solution.  For now Beck would start Watney on a course of antibiotics in the hope maybe that would clear up the problem.

Then the answer hit the doctor like a ton of bricks, he wasn’t treating the effects of an infection, he was treating the effects radiation. Chronic radiation syndrome would explain everything. The low grade fever, the gastrointestinal issues, anemia, low plantlet count, nausea, everything. Now that Beck had a diagnosis he had to deal with the next problem. The Hermes wasn’t equipped to deal with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone. First thank you so much for everyone who left reviews for last weeks chapter. Your feedback was very helpful. On to science! 
> 
> Well the first time I wrote this post I got a bit of push back, so I am trying again. Currently there is a bit of a fatal flaw with the Hermes design. It involves creating artificial gravity. While an engineer or a physicist will give you all the math to tell you it would work, a flight surgeon might just about have a panic attack. NASA and other agencies have been doing some great science on effects of centrifuge based Coriolis effect on human biology and in most situations they are not particularly pretty. And when I say not pretty I mean have a fair chance killing one of more of your astronauts during the length of the journey. 
> 
> You may ask, is there a solution to this problem? The answer would be yes. Most of the detrimental effects of the Coriolis effect on the Hermes could be counteracted by only utilizing for sleep and use some of the specialize exercises mentioned in the book to help counteract some of the other effects. So we give the Hermes 'artificial gravity' for sleeping quarters and possible a lab or small medical space, but in order prevent the other laundry list of health issues most of the rest of the ship would experience micro gravity. If you are interested into delving into this topic further please let me know and I will get you a few links to the latest research. 
> 
> Well goodbye until next week, were we will continue to whump Watney and learn why you would never actually send a microwave into space.


	3. Jail Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Watney has been on board the Hermes and even though he has only really been awake for one of those days he is already going stir crazy. Solution-Break out of sickbay.

* * *

He had been on board the Hermes for five days and Watney was bored out of his skull. Yes he had basically spent the first four days doing nothing but sleeping and eating (if you could call that tasteless ‘broth’ that Dr. Beck insisted was food), but he was fully awake now and after spending over a year of his life spending most of his brain power trying to stay alive doing nothing was, well, brain numbing. Like many scientists he was very dangerous when he had nothing to do.

Perhaps if one of the crew had been in the room with him, they could have possible talked some sense into him, but Beck was probable asleep somewhere and Martinez was fixing something and they assumed that a computer could keep Watney for a few hours. After all, didn’t he have a whole lot of people to send emails to? Didn’t he have several dozen reports that needed to be submitted to NASA? Didn’t he need to prove to Vogel that even though he currently held the ship’s high score on Tetris didn’t mean that he was actually the Tetris king?  Okay he did send an email to his Mom because you don’t piss off Mom and he did spend just over two hours playing Tetris (Watney 1-Vogel 0, Tetris King all the way!) but after being trapped on a planet for months with Lewis 70’s reruns computers didn’t have the entertainment value they use to.

Which brought him the current situation...he was bored…he didn’t want to be bored…so, Watney was going to stage a jail break. Yes there would be hell to pay later when Beck found out that he did it, but if he managed to get a real meal it would all be worth it.

As Mark tried to quietly extract himself, he had to admit that gravity was one of the few things he missed about the red planet. Everything was more complicated in space until your body had acclimated, which of course he hadn’t been crammed in a sleeping bag sickbay with a catheter rammed up his you know where and more tubes floating around him than he would care to admit. He first tried to unzip the sleeping bag but quickly released that the tubes were getting in the way. So he tried extracting the tubes first and found that the sleeping bag got in the way.

After what seemed like an eternity, but in reality was only 25 minutes. Watney managed to wiggle free of the last IV, find himself some pants and head out into the ship. It felt so good to be out of the claustrophobic space and practically flying down the corridor. Now that had escaped he knew exactly where he was headed. His didn’t even have to think as his body guided him to the place his stomach desired.

“Watney, what are you doing?” Lewis asked in surprise as Watney maneuver into the ships galley.

“Getting something to eat.” One kick allowed the botanist to glide across the room. His hand went out and anchored himself to one of the bars.

“You could have just messaged on of us and we could have grabbed you some soup.” The commander reached for of the prepackage broth poaches mounted to velcroed to the bulkhead.

“Oh my God, please, no more soup.” Watney groaned.  “I will have anything but more of that F-ing broth.”

“Do you think you could handle some oatmeal?”

“You know what?” With a wave of his hand, Watney started digging through several of the meal pouches in the ‘dinner’ cabinet. “Forget this. I will find my own breakfast.”

“Shouldn’t you be taking it easy?” Lewis’s voice held concern.

“It doesn’t hurt that bad.”

Beck cleared his throat from the corridor. “I have a feeling that has more to do with the painkillers you are on rather than you actual medical condition.”

“Oh come on, I did a pretty good job not killing myself on Mars.” Mark shrugged as he slotted a pouch in to the oven.

“But based on your personal records you probably nearly overdosed yourself on Vicodin on at least two occasions.”

“Not on purpose.”

“We all know that, but you pretty much has shown that you are not particular good at making medical decisions when you are high.” Lewis tried to smooth ruffled feathers.

“I am not that high.” Mark shot back.

“We will see if you still have that opinion in a couple hours.”  The doctor commented as he made himself a cup of coffee.

“I will be…” Mark began to protest, then his brain caught up with Beck’s statement. “Wait, so you are not going to force me to go back to time out?”

“No.”

“So I am completely free?”

“No, I am betting that in a couple hours you will realize just how stupid you were to ditch your IV.” Beck shrugged turning back to his coffee. He took a sip and looked levelly at the botanist. “After that experience you are going to be crawling back.”

“We will see.” Mark smirked, and then the oven pinged. “Now if you would excuse me I have a date with spinach ravioli.”

* * *

 Mark ended up regretting his excursion about two and a half hours later when cocktail of drugs had been on started to be metabolized out of his system. Whatever painkiller that Beck had put him on was very effective at making sure that he could breathe without wanting curl around his injured ribs. However said painkiller had a nasty side effect, nausea. The nausea wasn’t a problem as long as he was doped on Prochlorerazine, but his last does had been yesterday, so yeah, not reason enough. If throwing up in zero-g wasn’t bad enough, throwing up with broken ribs made the whole pain situation worse. Which brought him right back to why he was on pain drugs in the first place.

Lewis, Johansson, and Vogel at least had the good decency to pity him. Beck on the other hand just looked mildly amused when Watney gave up trying to avoid the medical bay and drag himself back for another dose of medication. Martinez had found the whole situation hilarious and had actually took blackmail shots of him puking his guts out with a camera which would magical disappear out an airlock as soon as Mark could get his hands on it.

Beck had finally given him a shot and the projectile vomit (which had mostly made it onto a space sick bag) had stopped. Then before the Dock would give anymore of the happy meds he had insisted on doing another set of chest X-rays to make sure that his ‘stunt’ hadn’t caused any permanent damage. Watney hadn’t. Yes his back was more swollen and his ribs were a little bit jostled, but nothing that some pain medication could fix.

Now he was tucked back in a sleeping bag in the medical bay. Right back where he had started this morning only this time his stomach was trying to do summersaults, his ribs were convinced that the diagram was trying to kill them, his mouth tasting like death, and Beck refusing to give him enough medication to make all his problems go away. The doctor’s logic, if Watney was feeling good enough to be an idiot it was time dial back the medication prevent himself doing something stupid.

Oh, and to make the whole situation Vogel had been assigned to babysit him while Beck. After Mark had made an offhanded remark about how much he hated zero gravity the man had actually corrected him. Yeah, micro gravity verses zero gravity just the conversation you really want to have when your diaphragm is trying expel every morsel of food you have ever eaten and might be trying to force your shattered ribs with it.

After 30 minutes of listening to Vogel’s epic metal (which as far as Watney can tell is simply German people yelling with guitars and an orchestra to back them up), Vogel is officially the person on board who might have worst tastes in music than Lewis.

Mark almost wished he could go back to being bored.

* * *

 “You know, you can ask for help?”

“Hm,” Chris muttered into Beth’s neck as he tried to drag his brain from the cotton fuzz of exhaustion. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that you have been completely neglecting yourself the last couple of days. I have had to remind you to eat, you haven’t been exercising, and you only sleep when Martinez forces you out of the medical bay.”

“How do I know you are not just lonely for me?” Beck pulled her close.

“And I am not allowed to miss my pillow?” Johansson smirked as she kissed him gentle on the nose. “But that is beside the point. There are four other members of the crew I am sure that all of us are capable of taking over some aspect of Watney’s recover. It is not like most of us have a whole lot else to do. Most of the science experiments were destroyed when they were plunged into a hard vacuum so you can even use the excuse that ordering us to care for your patient is important for the crew’s mental health.”

“I will think about it.” Beck agreed before he kissed her on the lips. Then he winked. “In the meantime, why don’t we make sure I get a little exercise today?”

Johansson giggled. Man, Chris loved that sound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I had a sick day. As a result I got a whole lot more writing that expected done today so I figured I might as well post an extra chapter or two this week. Hopefully everyone will enjoyed the little lighter direction this chapter took. It is hard to write a depressed Watney, even in the worst situation he just seems to swear like a sailor and then do something mildly insane. 
> 
> On to Science!
> 
> In space most hot food is prepared in one of two ways. First inject hot water into it, shake, wait, and consume. Second, a force air convection oven. Why is NASA using such simple technology instead of the humble microwave? Here are the two biggest reasons listed by JPL. 1-Microwaves are often big energy hogs. When you are running on a small energy budget you just don't want to expend more energy than you have to. 2-Spacecraft are designed to shield radiation out. Microwaves produce radiation. If a Microwave starts leaking the microwave radiation will continue to bounce around inside the spacecraft. A microwave oven was included in the original design for the ISS, but was vetoed due to the radiation risk. 
> 
> It is possible that a future space mission will have a microwave on board, but it will take some specialized design for the engineers to create something the NASA Medical community will fully approve.
> 
> Well it is the end to another post. I hope that you are enjoying the story so far and will stay tuned for the next chapter where the crew of the Hermes start making plans and where we will learn about cups designed to allow you to sip coffee in micro gravity.


	4. Breaking Point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The stress of living and working in space is rough under the best of circumstances. Under the current situation, it cause Chris Beck to reach a breaking point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge apology for keeping people waiting for the next chapter. End of year stuff at work was chaos and when you are working over a 100 hours a week and you have the choice between catching some shut eye and writing fanfiction, sleep tends to come first. My schedule has gone back to its more sane 50 to 60 hours a week which means I once again have time to write! In the New Year I hope to post chapter 3 to 4 times a month. 
> 
> Sorry again for the wait and thanks again for reading. I hope that you will enjoy reading this story in the coming months.

Beth was starting to get pretty worried. She knew that the stress of the journey and the severity of Watney’s medical condition were taking its toll on Chris. As much as he was trying to hide it from her, she could not count the times that he would disappear from there sleeping pod in the middle of the night. She would find him holed up in the galley or hovering one of the decimated labs pouring over medical texts sent from earth. While this wouldn’t be healthy behavior under normal circumstances it was downright dangerous in a tiny tin can flying through space.

Then there were the nightmares. Beck wouldn’t talk about what they were about. Not when he was awake anyway (he had a bad habit to mutter in his sleep when he was stressed and he was extremely stressed right now). But even with a bad case of moon face it was difficult to hide the dark circles under his eyes. Her boyfriend was starting to look a bit like a raccoon, and while it was kind of endearing on some level it also completely terrified her.

Up until this point Beth had to just trust that Chris would have enough common sense to not kill himself while her attention was focused trying to put the Hermes back together after they kind of tore it apart. Now that the ship was no longer threatening to fall apart at any moment she, Beth Johansson, had the time to be frustrated about the fact that her as her boyfriend slipped further and further away from her. Unwilling to let her cuddle buddy disappear from her life she decided to take matters into her own hand. She needed a plan, and evil plan to restore balance to the Force...Hermes, she actually meant Hermes but same difference.

* * *

 

Beck had nearly had a panic attack when he had gotten up from his catnaps, and headed down discovered that the medical bay was empty, again. He swallowed down thoughts of having to deal with a patient with punctured lungs, of permanent nerve damage or paralysis as he checked the nearest head to find it also empty. By this point the doctor was about ready to throttle Watney the moment that he found the botanist, but he wasn’t going to give up the search.

Wantey wasn’t in the galley, or the crew lounge. He hadn’t made his way up to the command module or wandered into the exercise area. Each location that Beck crossed off his mental checklist caused the panic inside of him to bumble up father. If something bad had happened, Mark could be trapped somewhere unable to call for help.

Mind racing through all of the emergency procedures that Beck had practiced during his first six week training mission his focus kept returning to the problem of internal bleeding. Even at the 0.4 G’s of the sleeping quarters it would be a nightmare to do emergency surgery. Watney’s own heart would provide enough pressure to spray blood at escape velocity all over the room and its contents.

At this point Beth manage to actually wake him up. Half-dressed the doctor fought his way to the medical bay to find his patient right where he had left him paging through a book on one of the ships tablets.

“Chris, I feel fine.” Watney tried to protest as the doctor entered the room, but Beck wasn’t hearing it. He was too busy running another round of medical tests to prove that the nightmare he had just experienced was really just a dream. 

* * *

 

“Don’t you think you may have over reacted a little bit?” Lewis tried to cox a reaction out of her flight surgeon, trying to understand what had driven his bazaar reaction this afternoon trying to preform tests that were unnecessary and would use up supplies they couldn’t replace. She shuttered to think of the damage he could have done to their stocks if Martinez hadn’t stepped in. “Beck, we do not doubt that you are a dedicated doctor, but are concerned about your wellbeing.”

“And do you think that I should ignore the fact that Watney could die if he does something stupid and knocks a cracked bone the wrong way or eats something that doesn’t agree with his gut?” Beck didn’t make eye contact as he spoke.

“But he hasn’t broken the rules. Since the incident three days ago, he has followed medical orders to the letter.”

“That doesn’t mean it isn’t going to happen.”

“That is true, but I have a much more immediate problem." Lewis admitted. “I am removing you from duty for the next 24 hours.”

“He has already proven that he is perfectly willing to push the boundaries…” Chris continued to argue, then what Lewis said caught up with his brain. “What!”

“You will not be allowed back on duty for anything short of a crew member going into cardiac arrest or the Hermes getting hit by a meteor.” Lewis laid out the rules.

“You can’t!”

“And before you protest any more, you need to know that I have already cleared this with Huston and they back me up.”

“You went over my head!” Chris was livid.

“Yes, I did.” Lewis said levelly as she stared her flight surgeon down. “Chris, you are too close to the situation. You are so focused on individual trees that you are incapable of seeing the surrounding forest and both your patient and you are suffering. Take a day off. Catch up on the exercising that you have been neglecting, read a book, spend some time with Johansson, sit and stare at the wall for all I care, but regardless of what you do you are off duty for the next 24 hours and if I catch you so much as peek at a medical journal or sneak into the medical bay I will make that 48 hours. Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am.” The doctor spat.

“Very well, dismissed.” Lewis indicated with a nod.

The mission commander allowed herself to let out a long sigh of relief when Chris left the space. She had known that one of the crew was bound to break sooner or later. The long period of time in the small pressure cooker of a spacecraft pretty much guaranteed that mental health would eventual suffer, but Beck sure had bad timing hitting the wall. At this point all she could do is keep an eye out for him and hope that 24 hours away from the pressure would allow Beck to bounce back. If it didn’t Lewis wasn’t sure if they would be able to make it back home without him doing his job.

* * *

“Coffee?” Beth asked, and Chris gave a simple nod before perching himself by the celling allowing the computer scientist to focus on the expresso machine. A few minutes later, she made her way up to him and handed Beck one of the strange microgravity coffee cups that always made Beth think of that she was sipping out of a nose. She let the two of them sip the hot bitter liquid for a few minutes before trying to start up a conversation. “So how did your talk with Lewis go?”

“We are not going to talk about that.” Chris spat while refused to make eye contact instead staring blankly at some point directly below her. 

“Then why don’t you tell me what has got your panties in a knot.” Beth pushed further in the hopes that she could finally break through to him. 

“No.” He said simply before turning tails and heading out the door leaving Beth alone with her thoughts. She sat quietly for a few moments, then smirked. They may have only officially been in a relationship two months now, but Chris should have realized that that Beth wasn’t a person who would take no for an answer by now.


End file.
